When Comedy Goes Wrong

Christopher J. Gilbert is Associate Professor of English at Assumption University. He is author of Caricature and National Character: The United States at War. He is also author of numerous articles published in a wide variety of academic journals and several chapters in edited volumes, and coeditor (with John Louis Lucaites) of Pleasure and Pain in US Public Culture. When he is not teaching and writing, Gilbert is a farmsteader and an avid cyclist.

"The debate over if you can take comedy seriously is settled: You can and you must, considering comedy's emergence as a major social force, surprisingly central to cultural discourse. This means comedy's power to unite and its power to divide demand our attention. Gilbert fortunately is willing to get his hands dirty, taking the reader deep into the latter. It won't make you feel better about everything that's happening, but you will feel like you have a better understanding of the current state of comedy and how it is being used and abused."—Jesse David Fox, senior editor and comedy critic at Vulture, host of Good Ones: A Podcast About Jokes, and author of Comedy Book: How Comedy Conquered Culture—and the Magic That Makes It Work"Brilliantly argued and deeply relevant, Gilbert tackles the darker underbelly of comedy—the kind that aspires not merely to raze the roof but to burn it all down. From the Capitol Insurrection to the alt-rights weaponization of humor, he offers a compelling critique of how comedic forms and exchanges can distort, if not altogether compromise, democratic ideals. This book is a highly readable and thought-provoking examination of how laughter can unite in order to divide, challenging readers to reconsider the redemptive power and responsibility of the comic voice in the modern world."—Beck Krefting, Professor of American Studies and Director of the Center for Leadership, Teaching, and Learning at Skidmore College, author of All Joking Aside: American Humor and Its Discontents"Chris Gilbert has a keen eye to the cultural sensibilities of the moment, skillfully linking a seemingly disparate range of cultural texts, comedians, and events. He keeps those of us who study comedy honest, discouraging us from myopically examining only the objects that we personally find funny, instead compelling us to grapple with the full range of comedy—in all of its glory and malaise."—Amber Day, Professor of History, Literature, and the Arts at Bryant University, author of Satire and Dissent: Interventions in Contemporary Political Debate"It's often said that good comedy should punch up rather than punch down. Yet, from Joe Rogan to the carnivalesque atmosphere of insurrections, a lot of punching down now takes place under the guise of punching up. Speaking to a moment when comedy, as Chris Gilbert puts it, has become the measure of what counts as consequential, this timely book provides a sweeping lens of the topic's dark side. In an environment where the comic impulse pleads to be taken seriously and not seriously, counted and discounted, Gilbert draws our attention to the ways in which civic responsibilities and the possibilities for building together get deflected rhetorically in so many acts. Casting a spotlight on comic forms that remain unaccounted for in scholarship and unaccountable to the public interest, this fascinating, well-written book is a critical contribution for understanding how comedy can as easily bring out the worst as we pursue the best of which humanity is capable."—Don Waisanen, Professor of Public Affairs at Baruch College, author of Improv for Democracy: How to Bridge Differences and Develop the Communication and Leadership Skills Our World Needs"This book presents a timely and meticulous interrogation of comedy at a moment when fools can act as kings and kings may act as fools. What does it mean when jokes are driven by egoism, fear, pride, and disdain? Is it disingenuous to claim comic routines with ideology and repercussions, delivered by public figures to legions of followers, are merely words or "just jokes?" Gilbert presents a series of deep dives, applying serious analysis to ostensibly unserious things, and in doing so holds a mirror to a jocular and media-modeled culture at a perilous moment, when the free expression and impunity afforded to the comedian becomes a tool to silence, to swagger, to self-aggrandize, and to dismiss."—Casey R. Schmitt, teacher of rhetoric and communication at West Chester University and co-editor of Standing Up, Speaking Out: Stand-Up Comedy and the Rhetoric of Social Change

• AcknowledgmentsIntroduction: High Times for a Comic Dispirit1. Comedy at Cross-Purposes: Paul Shanklin and the Show of Conservative Force2. Poe's Law and the Moot Points of Million Dollar Extreme3. Killing It: Joker and Comedy beyond Recognition4. Fools on the Hill: Trumpsters and the Capitol Insurrection5. Comedy Is Dead, and Living as Rage in the Comic Language of the Alt-Right MachineConclusion: Comedy on the Low RoadEpilogue: There Is No Denying the Comedy of Earthly SurvivalBibliographyIndex